Pashtun genetics?

[Midnight_Sun]

Hey guys can you guess what haplogroup i most likely belong to just by the physical description of my family?

Ok so most people in my family basically have pale skin and brown hair. My great grandfather was a red head with green eyes and my uncles 2 children have red hair. My other cousins who are twins in Afghanistan also have red hair but their parents were both dark headed. I was born with light brown hair with slightly red highlights and my dad has green eyes with pale skin but all my siblings (including me) have brown eyes inherited from my mothers side. My great grandfather originally came from surobi during the pashtunization campaign and settled in the north.

[MENTION=2852]Midnight_Sun[/MENTION]

Kushan,

These genetics tests do not code for hair color or eye color or even skin color. What it will tell you is which group of ancestors did your father and mother come from. It can tell you which peoples you share the most similar ancestry with. If you happen to match paternally or maternally with any of us, we can compare our ancestries and see how far apart we really are. It will also tell researchers the connections between different tribes.

For instance, I am from the greater Suleimonkhel, and if any other Ghilzai brothers here do not match my lineage, it can help either enforce or disprove origin myths we have about the origins of our tribes.

We need a comprehensive Pashtun Y-DNA and mtDNA study. For now, we can accumulate as much data as we can until somebody can finance such an endeavor.

[Monster999]

i want to try what adam did.

i am just afraid to find that i am 44% western african.

I'm afraid mine might say 44% Northern European. I would probably kill myself.

[Adam]

Adam,

The purpose of the groups is to find similarities between people that match. We can compare our maternal DNA to see how close we shared that ancestor.

It also is a database for researchers to infer the population dispersal pattern of human beings from both maternal and paternal ancestry.

I really hope you join the U2 project, I'd like to see how close we match! Also, you should join the Afghan-Pakistani DNA Group as well, which can be located here: https://www.familytreedna.com/public/dna_afghan_pak/

They have the most members who are of our descent and we can compare our ancestries accordingly. There are other paternal Q brothers in this group as well.

Done joined them both, although I think I may have to take an additional mtDNA test to find out my HVR1 Mutations and HVR2 Mutations so that we can compare as I dont think they were tested by Genographic2.0

[Midnight_Sun]

Geno 2.0 does the complete mtDna. I'll check them soon tonight.

[Monster999]

I have no reason to be mad about fallacies, about you or about me. lol

I like you

[Midnight_Sun]

Adam, I was wondering if you could PM me your kit ID/user ID so I can compare our U2c1 data on the U2 Haplogroup page on FTDNA.

[Admin Khan]

[MENTION=2852]Midnight_Sun[/MENTION]

So my understanding is that R1a1a1* is really common in Ukraine and Eastern Europe?

[Midnight_Sun]

Admin Khan,

Yes, that sounds about right. If any Pashtun came with those results, it would be quite a find. Unfortunately, some genetic tests only test back to that ancestor that lived over 5,000 year ago. Pashtuns are actually a more modern branch of R-M417, the branch that identified with R-Z94 or R1a1a1b2a1.

The big Y test that FTDNA has will further help classify where Pashtuns fall in this branch. I have ordered this test and when I get the results next month, it might show us how we relate with other branches of Z94, particularly the Indian, Turk, and Arab versions.

[Midnight_Sun]

So my Big Y Results are back, not only was there over 20 new private SNP's found, my Pashtun ancestry has created a new Branch under R1a1a's Z2125! (YP413)

[Midnight_Sun]

My Autosomal DNA results are back in from ftDNA, one month earlier than expected!
Breakdown:

Central/South Asian 63% -> Eurasian 51%, Indian Tectonic 12%

European 19% -> N. Circumpolar: 10%, Euro Coastal Islands: 3%, Euro Coastal Plains: 3%, Trans-Ural Peneplain: 2%

Middle Eastern 12% -> Anatolia & Caucasus: 9%, Eastern Afro-Asiatic: 3%

East Asian 7% -> Asian Northeast 7%

--

For those who don't know my historical ethnic background it is:

Paternal ancestry: Amarkhel (Father) , Kharoti (Shakarkhel) (Grandmother)
Maternal Ancestry: Alekozai & Jaghuri (Mother's Father) , Mohammadzai & Tarakhel (Mother's Mother)


Geographic Breakdown by Tested Populations:

[Midnight_Sun]

Just to give an update, I have ordered kits for two relatives of mine which will hopefully shed some light on some other ancestries.

Firstly, I have a cousin who's great grandfather was 3rd cousin to King Nadir Shah (Zahir Shah's Father, by the name of Sardar Mohammed Amin Khan Mohammadzai. They are technically part of the Barakzai lineage, so this might shed some light on this.

2ndly, I have also tested my father to find out more about the maternal ancestry of the Kharoti tribe (Ghilzai), since my father's mother belonged to that tribe, and apparently associated with the village of ShakarKhel Kharotis. I did an autosomal test as well as mtDNA full. We don't have much information on this group at all, so this will be very enlightening.

Thirdly, through the same cousin who can help me trace the ancestry of King Nadir Shah, I will hopefully find out his direct maternal ancestry, which is a distinct Hazara lineage that is based around Zardalu Village in Ghazni, Afghanistan. Zardalu is an Hazara village near Qarabagh, and she was apparently associated with the Jaghuri clan of this heritage. We don't really know for sure, and more Hazara maternal lineages will need to be tested to verify any connections.

Fourthly, by doing an Autosomal tests on my father I can see how much of my maternal ancestry plays a part in my genetic makeup, as well as narrow down the shared ancestry of the Suleimonkhels, Arghandiwals, and Kharotis (that make my father) from my mother's more diverse ancestry of Alekozai, Tarakhel, Mohammadzai, and Jaghuri.

Results should be posted in less than 2 months

[Sein]

I just wanted to post a message for everyone in the community. "FamilyTreeDNA" is having a Father's Day sale, their "Family Finder" test is currently only $79 USD, compared to the usual $99 USD. Please refer to this link: https://www.familytreedna.com/

There are quite a few companies out there that specialize in personal genomics/genetic genealogy. Pashtuns are sorely underrepresented in all of them. I'm at 23andMe (a very popular company), where they have a feature that identifies individuals who share specific IBD segments with yourself, which are indicative of relatively recent shared ancestry between individuals. I have only 3 Pashtuns in my results, out of 250 "cousins"! Most of my cousins are generic "White Americans". There is also a small bunch of people from Europe, Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus, India, China, and Korea. I even have 5 Afghan Tajiks on my list, as well as 2 Tajikistani Tajiks. If there were more Pashtuns at the site, my results would be vastly different. Searching for a Pashtun at 23andMe to share information with is like searching for some rare species of Australian marsupial. Because of this, we know very little about Pashtun genetic structure. Alongside these personal genomics companies, there are people who will analyze the raw-data you get from these companies in relation to academic samples, as well as in relation to other customers of personal genomics. These are all free. For Pashtuns, Harappa Ancestry Project is the place to look. Please refer to this:

http://www.harappadna.org/about/

http://www.harappadna.org/participation/

Because of this, and because Tamil Brahmins have been very active when it comes to purchasing these autosomal tests and then participating in free projects, we know a lot about how Tamil Brahmins stack up genetically. Another example, Assyrians are an ethno-linguistic+religious group from the Near East. Before these companies started, and before these free projects started crunching data, we knew nothing about the genetic ancestry of these people. A lot of people assumed they were identical to "Arabs", but merely of Christian faith. They were very wrong. Due to the influx of data, we now know that these people are very genetically distinctive, and represent the genomic variation of the pre-Islamic Middle East. Academia has yet to sample these people, so without Assyrians purchasing 23andMe or "Family Finder" tests, we would never know/understand their genetic heritage.

To make a long story short, if you have some money to burn, and you don't have anything important to spend it on, buy yourself a "Family Finder" kit from FTDNA. I would recommend 23andMe, but that company is producing lower quality data nowadays. Geno 2.0 is nice, but the SNP count is very poor. It's almost useless for use in free online genetic projects. FTDNA still has a lot of SNPs on their chip, so you get more resolution with the free projects. The actual results you get with your specific company don't matter as much as you sending your raw-data to "Harappa Ancestry Project". If you do so, your results at "Harappa Ancestry Project" gives all of us very valuable information about our genetic ancestry as Pashtuns, about how we relate to our neighbors, and about how we Pashtuns relate to each other.

So far, looking at the few results we have, it seems we Pashtuns are very closely related to our neighbors (Tajiks, Balochis, and Punjabis). We are also very close to Iranians. Nevertheless, in general, we seem to represent the genetic heritage of Central Asia before Turkic people expanded into that region. We really stand at the genetic intersection between West Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia. Also, like most people in our region, we have very substantial amounts of ancestry from "Ancestral North Eurasians", a group possibly implicated in the spread of Indo-Iranian languages. We also have a deep genetic link to South Asia, and a unique connection to the Caucasus, especially the northeastern Caucasus. Looking at ourselves in relation to each other, most Pashtuns are fairly similar, and the genetic differences are pretty minor. People from eastern Afghanistan and FATA seem to represent the older state of Pashtun genetic relationships, before greater mixture between Pashtuns and other Afghan ethnic groups, as well as between KPK Pashtuns and Hindkowans, occurred. But even the most Tajik-influenced Afghan Pashtuns, and even the most Hindko-influenced KPK Pashtuns, still resemble each other much more than they resemble Tajiks or Hindko people. Pashtuns from Lashkar Gah all the way to the edge of Taxila are identical in the big, broad genetic picture. We are a fairly homogeneous ethnic group. Also, the minor differences that do exist don't involve the Durand Line. Genetically speaking, Pashtuns don't vary that much from west to east. Pashtuns from Laghman or Kunar are identical to Pakistani Pashtuns from Mohmand Agency, Bajaur, and Charsadda. Afghan Pashtuns from Khost and Paktia are identical to Pakistani Pashtuns from Kurram Agency and Waziristan. Kandahari Pashtuns are indistinguishable from the Pakistani Pashtuns of Quetta and Zhob. Instead, the extremely minor genetic differences between Pashtuns occur on a north-south axis. People from Nangarhar+Kunar+Laghman+Mohmand Agency+Bajaur+the area around Peshawar are slightly more genetically South Asian than Pashtuns from Kandahar+Quetta. The differences are very minor, people from the north and south still cluster together, but it's noticeable. So, Pashtuns from Kunar are much more like Bajauris than they are like Kandaharis or Paktiawal. Paktiawal are just like Kurmiwal or Wazir/Mahsud, but somewhat distinct from the Abdali/Durrani of Kandahar. And Kandaharis are much more like Pashtuns from Quetta than they are like Pashtuns from Nangarhar or Khost. Also, most Afghan Pashtuns have noticeable East Asian percentages, while most Pakistani Pashtuns have 0%. But we can't be sure of all of this until we get more Pashtuns on board. Please people, if you have the money and desire, take advantage of this sale from FTDNA, purchase the "Family Finder" test. Once you get your results, please post and discuss them here. Also, make sure to email your raw-data to Zack at Harappa Ancestry Project. You won't be disappointed.

[Midnight_Sun]

Thanks Sein!

One thing is for sure, in my opinion: Pashtun men are very egalitarian when it comes to marrying women from other families. For the instance of Ghilzais who were forced to migrate to the North, opportunity to deviate from their own ethnicity greatly increased, as did with Pashtuns who were urbanized in the past 19th and 20th Centuries. This includes once nomadic tribes of Suleimonkhels and Durranis. Just my observation.

[Sein]

No problem my friend!

And I absolutely agree with your observation, Pashtuns are very liberal when it comes to marrying women of other ethnic groups. In my own family, we have relatives who have married Afghan Tajik/Farsiwan women, Afghan Uzbek women, and Pakistani Punjabis. Some family members who are scattered throughout the West have even married European and American women.

[Baraki]

No problem my friend!

And I absolutely agree with your observation, Pashtuns are very liberal when it comes to marrying women of other ethnic groups. In my own family, we have relatives who have married Afghan Tajik/Farsiwan women, Afghan Uzbek women, and Pakistani Punjabis. Some family members who are scattered throughout the West have even married European and American women.

My dad was telling me that in his generation (he lived in Lahore, Pakistan) it was very, very essential to marry another Pashtun at the very least (within tribe was preferred), but 10 years later when his sister got married she married a Punjabi lol (my dad himself and his 3 olders sisters all married pashtuns - different tribes though, not much choice in Punjab lol).. it is been getting more and more liberal in that sense.. whatever, I'm holding it down for Pakhtuns though, loyalty is the most important thing for me in a friend and companion, and no one does loyalty like our people, Alhamdullilah.